Godefroid Niyombare

Godefroid Niyombare (1969-) was a Major-General of the Burundian Army who served as the Chief-of-Staff, the head of the Burundi Intelligence Service, and the Ambassador of Burundi to Kenya. In February 2015 he was dismissed as the head of the SNR, and in May 2015 he led a coup d'etat against President Pierre Nkurunziza during the 2015 Burundian unrest. However, his coup was put down and he surrendered.

Biography
Godefroid Niyombare was born in 1969 to a Hutu family in Burundi. Niyombare fought in the Burundian Civil War as a commander of the CNDD-FDD rebel group, and after the CNDD-FDD leader Pierre Nkurunziza became President of Burundi, Niyombare was made Chief-of-Staff of the Burundian Army on 16 April 2009, the first Hutu to hold that office. In March 2011, 4,400 Burundian troops were sent to fight in the Somali Civil War on the side of the government of Somalia under Niyombare's command. In late 2014 he was made commander of the Burundi Intelligence Service (SNR), but in February 2015, he was dismissed from his post after writing a ten-page memo against Nkurunziza's plans to run for a third term.

On 13 May 2015, while Nkurunziza was away in Tanzania, Niyombare led a coup d'etat in Burundi amidst protests against Nkurunziza's rule, and rebel forces seized the airport, preventing Nkurunziza from returning home. Opposition leaders celebrated Niyombare's initially-successful coup. However, Nkurunziza's loyalist troops took over again and defeated a rebel attack on the state radio and television broadcaster a day later, and on 15 May, Niyombare announced that he would surrender to the government, hoping that he would not be killed. He was imprisoned, and the government remained in power.